Eternity Equals McTavish Times Cee Squared
by The General G of K
Summary: The rain continued to fall, and in that moment, I was certain of two things. First, some amphibious-like organism was currently dwelling in one of my Converses. And second, I was irretrievably in love with Adam McTavish. Cee Cee POV.


**Eternity Equals McTavish Times Cee Squared**

_By: The General_

Over the past couple years, I have come to accept _Twilight_, albeit grudgingly. The problem never resided with Susannah finally getting together with Jesse; I was totally Joe Cool with the whole thing. Really. The two were obviously destined to be. And the problem certainly didn't lie with Paul ending up with Kelly and acting like a homicidal crazy person even though the past two books foreshadowed absolutely nothing regarding his sudden Daniel Plainview persona (Okay, so I might be obsessed with Daniel Day-Lewis. I'd drink his milkshake any day.). I mean, hey, you want to make Paul out to be a baddie, that's cool. Villains can be sexy, too. My MAJOR problem with the book, however, resided with the book's complete lack of fluidity and complete lack of fleshed out story lines regarding secondary characters (i.e.: Cee Cee/Adam's relationship; Father Dom's apparitional love). So, in response to March's "What if . . .?" writing contest (COUGHshamelessplugCOUGH), I shall be answering the question:

**What if Meg didn't write the book over Columbus Day weekend? What if she had **_**cared**_

In regards to my story, allow me to explain. See, this is a stray-away piece that is based off of a Mediator story I have yet to write. (See? I'm so ambitious and lazy, I am making stray-aways based off of stories I haven't written yet. Think of it as my George Lucas approach to story telling. You know, making the last trilogy before the first?). It's an alternative universe piece that takes place after the end of _Twilight_. I just always felt like there wasn't enough closure regarding Cee Cee and Adam. And, admittedly, I have never been completely convinced by the reality of their pairing, but despite that, they _do_ have some absolutely adorable potential. So, after writing a novel to you, I present the fruits of my (nonexistent) labor. Be warned, my inner fluff writer aggressively took over half-way through.

* * *

That night, rain fell with reckless abandon all across the quaint seaside town of Carmel, and I . . .

. . . I went for a walk.

Sure, there were other times to talk a walk, like that one time with the sun. Oh, or that other time when that warm, glow-y sphere thing hung in the sky and dihydrogen oxide was not falling in torrents. Yeah, those would have been pretty decent opportunities to take a jaunt along the boardwalk or something. But that night, I just felt like my footsteps were too loud in my own house (well, okay, Suze's living room); I felt trapped.

Ever since the Descention, fear had saturated through even the bravest in our ranks. Even Father Dominic was worried. To stay safe, most of the city, our gang included, had gone into hiding, staying off the radar for days at a time. And I was sick of it. All of it. The fear, the constant worry, but most of all, the hiding. It just felt incredibly cowardly. In school, back before the Descention, I confronted every adversary head on, whether it was a particularly difficult limit or a particularly difficult person (e.g. Kelly).

Heh, look at me. Crass enough to make jokes about Kelly only a few days after her death. The claustrophobia did nothing to improve my empathy.

Anyway, the point was I hated all the sitting around. So, quietly, I tip-toed across the knotted, wood floor to the coat rack and grabbed what looked like Jake's rain jacket. The sleeves drooped limply past my finger tips, and the hood made me look like the newest member of the Jedi Council, but I figured I could use all the help I could get in defense of the rain.

The door slammed shut behind me, and within minutes, my clothes were drenched. As I walked, my shoes suctioned to the ground, releasing only with the slightest of _pop!_s. With bitter regret, I realized I should have traded my Chuck Taylors for a pair of galoshes. It figured that when I needed it most, my common sense decided to take a sabbatical to Tahiti.

Despite the hood, the rain continued to lash at my face like tiny paper cuts. I pulled drawstrings on either side of the hood, which made me look like some crazed Eskimo and, consequently, like I hadn't read a single issue of _Seventeen_ in a decade or so. But, I scoffed to myself, who the heck was there to impress anyway?

"Cee Cee?"

_Damn_.

"What the hell are you doing _here_?"

Adam stood behind me in a Gore-Tex parka that actually seemed to be his size. Like me, he appeared to be going for a walk. Unlike me, however, he seemed to have dressed appropriately for the occasion. On the other hand . . . why was _he_ here?

"I might pose the same question to you," I retorted back. Instinctively, I cringed. For some reason, whenever Adam was around, my vocabulator just shut down, and every crazy, arcane word I knew poured out of me. _Pose_? Really? Who, besides the elderly, use the word "pose?" The albino girl in the massive rain slicker, that's who.

"Oh, well, you know me," he kidded, walking closer to where I stood. Water dripped from the bill of his tattered Red Sox cap. "Always finding new and exciting ways to tone my glutes. You?"

I wrapped my arms around myself in a juvenile gesture. The energy to laugh died inside of me a long time ago. "I . . . I felt crowded. Trapped. I had to get out of the house."

Our feet simultaneously suctioned and _popped!_ as we started walking side by side along the cemented pedestrians' walk. Any trace of humor that was previously etched on his face vanished as if it had not been there in the first place. In stark contrast, his features looked haggard and worn. He looked tired.

"Yeah," he agreed in a quietly sullen voice. He looked so odd without a smile, so foreign. "I know the feeling, Cee Squared."

Admittedly, my lips almost twitched upward at the sound of his personal nickname for me. Adam enjoyed puns, and furthermore, humor involving squaring things. Like in sophomore year when they made us read _Wuthering Heights_, he always referred to Heathcliffe as "Heathcliffe Squared" when he found out that Heathcliffe was both his first and surname.

Plus, "Cee Squared" was also the final part of Einstein's mass-energy equivalence equation. You know, 'E' equals 'MC' Squared? Anyway, you will have to excuse me for absolutely loving the fact that Adam's nickname inadvertently referenced one of the most recognizable math formulas on the planet. Quadratic formula aside, it was one of my favorites.

"How's your arm?" I asked suddenly, at a loss to say anything else. At least the wind had calmed down; the thunder, on the other hand, continued as if it had to do double just to make up for the wind's slack.

Adam flinched as if I'd just hit him on the injury in question, or as if the memory of being hurled at a brick wall with the projectile rate equivalent to that of a speeding car hurt too much to think about. "It's . . . healing," he finally decided on. Instinctively, he reached over and grasped the injured portion of his arm. A flash of its previous contorted, blood soaked condition flashed across my mind. "It will be awhile before the Sox'll draft me for their star pitcher, but, hey! Chicks dig scars, right?"

"Right." I glanced over at him, and he at me, and in that moment his grin was just so earnest and real and pained and tortured, I couldn't tell whether I wanted to praise him for his avid attempt at courage and strength, or whether I wanted to cry. In the end, I settled on neither.

The rain continued to fall in heavy, uneven torrents, and in that moment, I was certain of two things. First, some amphibious-like organism was currently dwelling in one of my high-tops. And second, I was irretrievably in love with Adam McTavish. The realization hit me like a leather bound edition of Karl Marx's _Das Kapital_, only with less talk of alienated labor, and more emphasis on the "oww!" factor. I felt like I couldn't breathe, and it had absolutely nothing to do with our current walking pace or an upcoming oral exam detailing the dangers of antibacterial resistance. I couldn't even bring myself to be concerned when my hood flew off. Although, within the next few minutes, when my hair plastered itself to my head and water dribbled down my back, I became concerned.

"Cee Cee . . ."

In retrospect, what I should have said . . .

. . . was _nothing_. A perfect opportunity to remain quiet had presented itself.

But what I _did_ say was, "I'm scared, Adam."

Honestly, I didn't mean to say it. The plan consisted of me keeping my mouth firmly shut, and at all costs, avoiding the "s" word. But it was too late. The words hung in the air like a thick, opaque fog surrounding us. Not for the first time in my life, I wished the Doctor would sweep me into his TARDIS and take me back ten minutes ago, before I admitted my true feelings, before I realized I wanted to give my heart in its entirety to a guy whose DeNiro impression lacked everything defined by the word "impression." But that didn't matter anymore because I had made my decision a long time ago. I had chosen him.

Adam laughed faintly, forcing a well-adjusted, in control façade of a smile. "There's no reason to be scared, Cee," he assured me. "In case you haven't noticed, the Simon Squad has a reputable number to it, thanks to Jake, Brad, and David's membership. Not only that, but we have Xena: Warrior Princess's shorter, slightly less endowed cousin, Suze, as our leader. It's all gold."

Suddenly, I felt less in awe of Adam's positive attitude and more annoyed by it. No one seemed to share my fear regarding the threat we were facing. Daisies and sunshine didn't always make up the world, and if the events of the past few weeks had taught us anything, I would have thought it was that. But no one, save for myself, seemed to be getting it. Scratch annoyed. I was _pissed_.

"'All gold?' What the _hell _are you talking about?" I demanded crossly, abruptly stopping in my tracks. "Did you _see_ the condition Suze was in when Paul finished with her?"

Adam looked down at his feet. "Not, uh . . . not really. I was a little preoccupied with first, being hurled at that brick wall, and then the subsequent unconsciousness. I think you'll recall the head wound." He lifted his Red Sox cap just the tiniest bit to reveal a massive bruise on his forehead.

I blushed, feeling like a real jackass. Hopefully, his vision was as poor as mine was out in this rain. "Oh. Right."

"So, um"—He lifted his gaze to mine, and even though I was potentially angry with him, I still found myself drowning into the blue depths of his eyes.—"How is she? Suze, I mean?"

"She's in bad shape," I admitted truthfully. "In all the years I have known her, I have never seen her in such bad shape, but I . . ." I sighed heavily. "See, Suze keeps saying that Paul is a minimal threat at best, but I don't believe her. I've accepted her judgment in almost every, single situation we have faced, but on this . . . How can someone be so _blind_? Paul nearly killed her, and he was weakened by Father Dominic's incantation at the time. Just imagine the damage he could inflict at full strength? Not only that, but he's got the Devil on his side, too! It's like David and Goliath; only, there are two Goliaths and David doesn't have any limbs, he's partially deaf, and one of his eyes was replaced with a dirt clod. Oh, and because I'm agnostic, there's no God backing him up either!"

Adam just stood there, looking at me. "I forgot how negative you could be," he remarked, ironically.

I stamped my foot in a puerile manner. Water splashed up and soaked my pants even further. "Damn it, Adam! I'm _serious_!"

"So am I," he defended, taking hold of both of my hands. I stared down at our entwined fingers and briefly noticed his bloodied and bruised knuckles. For the first time in a long time, I felt actual warmth sluice through my frozen (literally) veins at point of contact. Before I could ask him why he was holding my hands, or anything else for that matter, he leaned forward and pressed his mouth to mine.

His mouth was warm and protective, yet avaricious and firm. Our rain jackets squelched together as he pulled me in closer, and I, unsure of what to do with my hands, wrapped them around his waist. My bones and teeth, which had been chattering before stilled as my blood pressure skyrocketed, and my hypothalamus worked overtime. He tasted like water, mostly, but also faintly like cinnamon, as if he had been snacking on graham crackers or cinnamon rolls beforehand.

Then, just as abruptly as he initiated the kiss, or so it seemed to me, anyway, he pulled away, and once again grasped my hands in his. "Was I, uh . . . was I okay? Was that good?"

Some time within the past few minutes, my vocabulator actually vanished, and I was left to fend for myself. By that, of course, I simply meant that I could not find my voice anywhere. Or the last remaining portions of my brain, for that matter. I licked my lips. "Um, yes?"

My answer came out more of a question than a reassurance since I wasn't exactly sure of the appropriate answer to a question like that. I mean, he was _highly _mistaken if he thought I kissed boys all the time, and then scored them on a letter system of 'A' to 'F.' To be perfectly honest, I probably would use a number system because of the accuracy, but besides the point. I didn't kiss boys all the time. In fact, that had been my first kiss ever. And if I had to wait another eighteen years to experience the same sensation, I would do it in a heartbeat.

If I was hoping for Bon Jovi-esque love ballads afterwards, or sonnets of the purest dedication, I was sorely disappointed. Instead, Adam followed up his first question with, "Do you know what 'E' equals 'MC' squared stands for?"

"Y-Yeah, of c-course" I stuttered, not anticipating that particular question at all. Like, if this was a random survey on Family Feud for 'Things you most expect to come out of the mouth of the boy you just kissed,' 'Do you know what 'E' equals 'MC' squared stands for?' would not have even shown up on the board. Whoever was playing at the time would have gotten a giant strike. "It's 'energy equals mass times the speed of light in a vacuum squared.'"

Adam shook his head. "Well, yeah, to physics nerds such as yourself," he retorted. In all honesty, I have never found the name 'nerd' to be romantic. "But to me, it stands for 'eternity equals McTavish times Cee Squared,' which is you"—He pointed at me, with a small grin.—"So let Paul send all he's got! Let him start the apocalypse; I don't care! Because the way I see it, you and I—together—are forever. And nothing, not Paul, not the Devil, not those disgusting Jimmy Dean sausages wrapped in a pancake on a stick can come between us. Nuh—"

This time, I took the reins of control and kissed him. I mean, really, could you blame me? Nicer words had not been spoken to me in my entire life by anybody, except maybe Father Dominic back in the second grade when he told me nobody noticed when I forgot my lines in the Thanksgiving pageant when I played the lead Native American, as irony would have it. The line, to make it even more embarrassing, was "How!"

"I love you," were the first words out of my mouth when I pulled back.

"I love you, too, Cee Cee," Adam replied instantly afterward.

"Really?" I blurted like a total loser. I couldn't help it though. Rejection just sort of became my life's mission statement.

He brushed my right cheek with his knuckles. "Of course! And I'm sorry it took so long for me to admit it to you and myself. But then again, I'm sort of an ass like that. If you'll recall, it took a good two or three years of debate before I officially decided Weezer was my favorite band."

I smiled back at him, and then we kissed again briefly. "C'mon," I insisted, taking hold of his hand. I, Cee Cee Webb, was holding Adam's hand, and it was fantastic. "Let's get out of this rain and get these wet clothes off."

Adam raised an eyebrow. "Is that an invitation?" he asked slyly.

I thought about it a second before ultimately deciding, "More like a suggestion."

"I can deal with that," he said after some consideration with a smile.

Hand in hand, we walked back toward Suze's house. And just for that night, I decided to embrace existence, embrace existentialism. Embrace the fact that eternity did, in fact, equal McTavish and Cee Squared.


End file.
